UDOT is responsible for more than 6,000 miles of highways and bridges in Utah —14 percent of the state’s total highway road system of 40,707 miles. This responsibility includes construction, repairs, maintenance, signage and snow removal, as well as monitoring for road conditions and accidents.

The largest bridge reconstruction of its kind in the United States to date, the I-80 project utilized a construction management process based on Primavera P6. This helped minimize the environmental impact of the reconstruction by reducing time of construction, construction pollution and traffic congestion leading to automobile pollution.

Primavera P6 is an integrated project portfolio management (PPM) solution that helps organizations globally prioritize, plan, manage and deliver projects, programs and portfolios, along with innovative construction practices. The solution has helped UDOT to maximize the efficiency and reduce the cost of its project.

Using Project Management Best Practices to Minimize Impact on the Environment

UDOT uses Primavera P6 on a majority of the state’s projects to ensure they are completed on time and within budget, and to measure the effectiveness of its construction programs. This helps ensure the UDOT employs the right construction methodologies for each project and also minimizes the impact on the motoring public that passes through the construction zones.

Leveraging Primavera P6, UDOT’s construction methodologies have:

Reduced construction times by up to 40 percent;

Nearly eliminated congestion in highway construction zones;

Saved thousands of tons a year of vehicular pollution and millions of dollars a year in user cost savings;

Saved significant time in its design process, bidding process and construction management;

Significantly reduced paper usage with its associated environmental impact; and

Reduced necessary construction resources by more than 10 percent.

Before construction began on the I-80 project, UDOT reviewed various construction options using Primavera P6 to assess the time impact of each option. The organization developed schedules that represented its standard construction method versus the use of multiple prefabricated bridge components – an innovative approach to bridge construction.

UDOT determined it would be able to build the bridge faster with less interference to traffic with the new approach, so it constructed seven bridges remotely then moved them into place after it completed construction.

UDOT realized several advantages with this methodology, including:

Reduction of overall construction time from three to two years;

Reduced contractor CO2 emissions by more than 20,000 tons;

Improved traffic flow through the project;

Reduced emission due to congestion by more than 100,000 tons;

Reduced impact costs to drivers by more than US$10 million;

Safer and more efficient bridge construction which uses significantly less manpower and equipment;

Improved public acceptance of the project due to UDOT’s efforts to minimize impacts related to the project.

Supporting Quote

“To provide the best highway system for the state, we look beyond just asphalt and concrete, and partner with local communities, transit agencies, environment advocates and others to ensure that we provide the best overall product. We also rely on Oracle’s Primavera P6 Enterprise Project Portfolio Management to control and manage our construction process in an environmentally friendly fashion,” said Larry Myers, State Project controls engineer, Construction Division, Utah Department of Transportation. “Primavera P6 gives us the power to quickly assess the impact of different construction techniques and methodologies on our projects. This enables us to choose the construction approach that minimizes the environment impact of our projects on the community.”